That was bad.
“We didn’t play well enough in any area,” head coach Melyssa Lombardi said.
Really bad.
“They know they didn’t play well.” Lombardi said. “The biggest thing for them is to understand we didn’t play well.”
2,917 were in attendance for Oregon softball on Saturday afternoon — and the Ducks were a no-show.
It’s just one game, of course, and on paper, No. 5 Oregon’s (40-5, 13-2 Big Ten) 8-0 loss in game two of a series against the No. 6-ranked UCLA Bruins (41-6, 13-2 Big Ten) won’t change much in the grand scheme of the season.
But on the field, just a pair of games into a marquee matchup that has provided postseason-esque atmospheres in the middle of April, Lombardi’s squad has received a much-needed barometer.
Of how the Ducks’ pitching staff matches up with one of the best offenses in the nation.
Of what a blueprint for success might look like in the playoffs.
And of the imperfections they still must correct to reach the lofty goals the team has set for themselves.
On Friday night, they out-executed the Bruins in a wire-to-wire win. Saturday, however, was a different story. Despite being able to deploy their pitching plan — which was to have Lyndsey Grein and Staci Chambers start the game before handing the ball over to Elise Sokolsky for the majority of the innings — Oregon’s offense went silent in the loss.
Addisen Fisher was tremendous for the Bruins, tossing six shutout innings and improving her record to 14-0 on the season.
“We didn’t make the adjustments,” Lombardi said of Fisher’s performance. “She pitched well and kept getting us to ground out. We just kept making the same types of outs.”
It was the Ducks first run-rule loss since April 22, 2022.
The offensive lull was the primary reason for the defeat, but there were other small ways the Ducks fell Saturday afternoon.
A walk to the Bruins’ nine-hole hitter was followed by an error from usually sure-handed shortstop Paige Sinicki. Then, a sac-fly and a wild pitch brought in the first two of UCLA’s eight runs.
Those mistakes weren’t the main reason Oregon lost, not after the Ducks struggled to hit or garner any offensive momentum at all.
But two third-inning blunders combined with the Bruins’ sixth-inning outburst were more than enough for UCLA to sink Oregon.
The Bruins blew the game open when Jordan Woolerly slapped a three-run double to left before Kaniya Bragg blasted a long homer to left.
On the other hand, Sokolsky and reliever Taylour Spencer combined for four walks — three of which came around to score.
“She needs to tighten things up a little bit,” Lombardi said of Sokolsky. “I thought we were just too up and down with the counts, instead of getting ahead and putting them away.”
Still, UCLA won on the margins — the Bruins outhit the Ducks nine to three and played a far cleaner game.
It was a brutal loss for the Ducks, but in the big picture, game two of the series will have to count as a blip on the Ducks’ relatively unscathed record.
Oregon will go for a series win on Sunday at 2 p.m.
“We are a really good team, I didn’t like how we played today. I know our team didn’t like how we played today” Lombardi said. “So what’s nice is we get another opportunity tomorrow… but props to them.”
